Maya & Lochan  Epilogue
by A. Canton
Summary: What happens to Maya and her family after Lochan is gone? Do they fall apart or do they manage to get through it all together?     Also, this is my first attempt at fanfiction!


_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Maya slowly opened her eyes and awoke to the sounds of the machine beside her bed. It took her a moment before realizing where she was. She was in her hospital of course. She had endured her first heart attack just last year and had come out shattered but not broken, although this latest attack was not as benign as the first. She glanced down to see her brother Kit sitting next to her bed, sprawled in slumber next to her legs, his familiar gray hair streaked with white from the stress of caring for his elder sister this last difficult year. Her earlier recovery was slow at first, and although Maya was a retired nurse of over forty years, she was greatly embarrassed to be so dependent on others for her health and hygiene. She had finally traded in her wheelchair for a walker and then to a cane, when her life was again disrupted, this time during Will's fifth birthday party - Tiffin's grandson. The dominant traits of the family seemed to have been skipped in the generation after Maya's, but there was no doubt that Will, with his startling green eyes and his coal colored hair, was a descendant of her dearest love, Lochan.

Mustering up her strength, Maya lifted her hand from her chest and gently placed it atop Kit's head, slowly stroking his hair. She could feel her her chest weakening as she gazed up at the white ceiling with its austere florescent lighting and thought, "it won't be long now." Maya began to reflect on her life which she had come to terms with in her last years, leaving her with a feeling of great peace and contentment. She remembered sitting in on one of Willa's university lectures, it turned out that her father and Lochan weren't the only scholars in the family. She remembered bringing Kit's children to school, excited at playing with their beloved uncle Tiffin - the elementary school gym teacher. Kit too had found his calling, after Lochan's suicide he would go around taking things like his mobile and smashing it to the ground. Later he would regret his actions and went about repairing it since they didn't have the money for a replacement. He grew to love putting things together, and channeled his rage into being a mechanic, one who was able to fix what was broken.

Maya had quite a difficult time back then, however she was worried far more about Kit than herself. He was destroyed about Lochan's suicide and blamed it all on himself for years. It wasn't until he had his own kids that he realized just what he was back then, a kid. A scared, angry, and foolish boy who was not aware of the consequences of his actions that fateful day. Maya had long forgiven him, and she reminded him that like her own life - he must continue to survive because that is what Lochan gave his life for, and she would be damned before she allowed his sacrifice to be in vain. Although, she supposed that she didn't live life the way Lochan would have hoped.

She had tried to fall in love with other men, she was once a beautiful young nurse fresh out of university who caused many a doctor's head to turn as she walked down the hospital corridors. They were nice enough, good looking and cultured. But when it was time to be intimate, Maya's nerves would seize up as if her body rejected anyone who wasn't Lochan. Sometimes she endured it anyway, just so that she could close her eyes and imagine the beautiful beginning of that day. Before the police dragged her brother away in handcuffs and before her mother's agonized scream. When the sun shone brightly through the open window and a fresh breeze made the white curtains flutter like sails on a ship. When she and her brother lay naked, looking deep into each others eyes, smiling, laughing and covered with love. It worked sometimes for a brief moment only to disappear as quickly as it arrived, leaving her with nothing but the empty ache of a memory on a summers day during her sixteenth year. It was no surprise that relationships were fleeting, and that she bore no children. It was fine with Maya however, she poured her energy into her work - helping those in need and devoting all of her spare time to her siblings and their new families.

Maya lifted her hand from Kit's head and examined her beloved silver bracelet. Although patients like her were not technically allowed to wear jewelry (they got in the way of IV's and such) the staff had grudgingly allowed her to wear her favorite piece of jewelry because of her distinguished career in the hospital. Maya turned over the bracelet to read a sentence which had been etched upon her mind since the moment she first read it nearly fifty years earlier.

"Maya, love you forever. Lochan x."

A tear made it's way down her cheek, as it had whenever she read those words and remembered the Christmas he had given it to her, bursting with pride for having saved up the money to buy it and boyishly nervous that she wouldn't like it. Of course she would, next to her grandnieces and nephews it was still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Maya suddenly felt an intense drowsiness overtake her, as the beeps on the heart monitor became further and further apart. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked up, she saw Lochan standing in her room, gazing lovingly at her.

She sat up immediately, Lochan smiled at her that slightly crooked and shy smile she had dreamed of but had not seen in countless years. A smile that lit up her whole world which warmed her body from her fingertips to her toes.

"Lochie? Is it really you?" she asked softly. He nodded.

"Am I dreaming?"

"No Maya," he answered, walking to her bed and placing his hands in hers. "This is absolutely real."

Maya didn't know what to say. Hot tears began cascading down her face and she looked down, shaking and unable to cope with what she had wished for every day since he left her. She felt Lochan sit next to her on the bed, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her in his arms like a child.

"Oh Lochie, please don't look at me!" she cried.

"Why wouldn't I? You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"

"But…but, I'm old! You've stayed 18 but I've grown up! I'm an old woman now, I don't want you to see me looking this way." she cried. She exhaled deeply as she felt Lochan's gentle kiss on her forehead.

"Look at me, Maya. Please." he asked. Maya hesitated, but took a deep breath and lifted her head until she was staring directly into her brother's eyes. They were even greener than she remembered. As she gazed into him, she saw her own image reflected and drew back in shock. She was standing next to him now, no hospital room in sight; just an empty white space filled with light.

Her hair was no longer short and white, but long and auburn which reached down to the small of her back. Her aging spots had turned into freckles, and her white paper-like skin filled with wrinkles was now smoothed and tan. She was now as she had had been during the happiest time of her life, sixteen years old and filled hope for the future.

"I can't believe it! What's happening?" she exclaimed, turning about and laughing. Lochan smiled, devastating her senses.

"Do you remember what I told after you brought me home from the nurse's office? When I thought the world had ended because you told me you didn't love me anymore?"

"Oh please don't think about that! I was just being a stupid, I was mad because you told me I was better off finding someone else to love!"

"Shh…" Lochan whispered, embracing his sister and slowly running his hand along her back. Maya began to calm down, wrapped her arms around Lochan's waist and nestled her head against his chest. "I didn't mean to upset you. I was just asking if you remembered what I told you when we made up."

"Of course I do," Maya replied. "How could I forget?"

"I knew you wouldn't," he smiled. "I just wanted you to know that it still stands. That we can love each other. That there are no laws, no boundaries, on feelings. We can love each other as much and as deeply as we want. No one, Maya, no one can ever take that away from us."

"But they did," Maya whispered into his chest.

"They did" Lochan conceded. "But they can never touch us again. Where we're going no police will follow. We can be as we were meant to be all those years ago, and this time no one will take us away from each other because we're not doing anything wrong or unnatural. Because nothing is wrong or unnatural about our love because it right, and it is pure. I love you Maya, I've loved you all of my life."

"I love you too, Lochie" Maya whispered. She raised her head off of his chest and felt Lochan's lips against her own. His touch was so beautiful that she didn't and would never have the words to accurately describe just how much love engulfed her at that moment. "I'm only sorry I made you wait so long."

"Don't be sorry, my love" he said. Maya felt a thrill inside of her, she had called him this once but he had never returned it. Lochan had lost many of the reservations which plagued him during his short life. "Perhaps death does that to a person," she thought.

"I would have waited forever" he whispered.

"Does it hurt?" Maya asked nervously.

"I won't let it." Lochan answered softly. He gently pulled himself away from their embrace, and took her hand in his. He slowly began to walk forward, and Maya followed him without question or hesitation.

The endless single chord of Maya's heart monitor sounded like a siren, and Kit shot up from his chair. Doctor's and nurses flooded in and hurriedly turned on the defibrillator and began to prep Maya.

"No!" Kit cried out. The hospital staff paused. "She requested that she not be resuscitated. You can check her paperwork and you'll see that it's true. Please," he whispered, his voice shaking with grief. "I'm her brother and she told me that if she had another attack that this is what she wanted."

The doctors and nurses looked shocked, each having worked closely with the beloved nurse Maya Whitley. They regained their composure and turned off the machine. They gathered together around their beloved mentor, friend, and sister. Kit leaned in to give his sister a final kiss goodbye, and swore he heard her whisper her final word.

"Lochan."


End file.
